"something floral": literature student blabbering about the usage of flower symbolism in "nevermore", how it ties to the theme of insanity and a little bit (a lot) about shakespeare.
from lenore's perspective, flowers are closely associated with isolation caused by her trauma and supposed "hysteria". floral pattern wallpaper accompanied her loneliness for days, months, even years. image of the flowers signaled that lenore's position would remain unchanged, that she was stuck, that she would continue to slowly loosing the clarity of her mind.
having torn the wallpaper off the walls, lenore believes that she will never see this image again, but flowers continue to accompanying her. lenore sees them again during her first meeting with annabel lee. and during the last one, too. she may have managed to get out of her lonely room, gain more strength in her legs, find a new friend, but lenore is still trapped. she's the daughter disowned by her parents, a stain on the family reputation that must be hidden forever. the image of flowers doesn't let her forget about it.
similar symbolism is also not alien to annabel lee. episode 66 is interesting in particular, because it directly quotes ophelia's monologue. I'm a big fan of shakespeare, it was he who instilled in me an interest in floral symbolism. a year ago, for a conference on foreign literature, I wrote an article about flower language of "hamlet". it's not available in english, but I'll list down some points that I considered relevant regarding "nevermore".
• rosemary can serve as a keepsake between lovers and also between the dead and the living. it could be seen at both weddings and funerals. in the old days it was also believed to be helpful in mental illnesses treatment.
• pansies, just like violets, symbolize innocence and devotion. ophelia doesn't consider the people around her worthy of violets, since she blames them for the death of her father.
• rue is a symbol of eternal suffering; grieving over her murdered father and the loss of her beloved hamlet, ophelia leaves some of the flowers for herself.
• the image of daisies has a close connection with the concepts of innocence, fidelity and eternal love. in shakespeare's tragedy, this symbol is overshadowed by the fact that in the world around ophelia there's no place for these beautiful things. for "nevermore" the symbol is also not so positive, since the readers are already familiar with daisies. they were on that wallpaper in lenore's room.
it's impossible not to note that annabel lee recites the monologue while in the bath, in the water. ophelia decides not to resist the river flow. her life turned into a tragedy: she was left without a father, her lover has seemingly lost his mind. her own sanity is also called into question. ophelia sings cryptic songs, goes into the field to weave a wreath, gives flowers to other characters. in the eyes of those around them, hamlet and ophelia seem crazy, while being the only sane and honest people among them. there's no place for tender, innocent ophelia in a cruel, deceitful world, so she drowns.
annabel lee also reflects on how both she and lenore are considered madwomen. her meeting with "leo" is accompanied by floral pattern on the annabel's dress. their madness is contextual, they both are perfectly sane, but don't fit into the system that could be leading to real madness with time. "all madwomen die twice. at least twice".
now about the arboretum. it obviously has a lot of flowers, but in my opinion this place is interesting in a different context. lenore and annabel visited the arboretum twice to discuss upcoming plans and such, and there are many parallels, both visual and narrative. not much time has passed since last time, but their situation has changed. they seem to look on their past selves from the upper level, having their conflict more acute now. I'll make a more detailed post about it later.
and now I'll just focus on how the characters in this arboretum full of roses behave as lost and confused as in the phobia-inducing flower labyrinth from earlier episodes. “the closer you get to beautiful flowers, the closer you get to their thorns,” says duke in episode 38. the flower imagery haunting the main characters doesn't let them forget that their sanity is always on a verge of slipping. and once a flower falls from its stem, it cannot be fixed.
p.s. guess which writer’s works I chose for a new article this year?
i know that it's bc they probably didn't have every species for every random npc pre-decided when they were recording lines but i really get a kick out of how wildly varied the chiss accent is in swtor and it makes me think that ascendency plants would have different dialects of cheunh that manifest into different accents when speaking basic.
i've made it to the end of no man's land vol.1 (2011) which means i can finally read the yj no man's land tie in. i can read yj stuff again. im slightly traumatised by going from what is essentially the scooby squad adventures (rn at least) right into unimaginable catastrophe but u gotta do what u gotta do
This time last year we had so many BTS pics and leaks and the theories that came from those.
But this year... nothing.
Even from set stalkers....we know absolutely nothing about this 3 parter except that Mark Consuelos gets eaten by a whale and Buck isn't part of the rescue.
We have circumstantial evidence that Lou may be involved in the season, but nothing concrete.
We know that Buck has a little house, Chimney is captain and Eddie has a day of the dead episode with Pepa, Abuela and some woman named Gina.
We know they're renaming the firehouse.
And we know that it seems Harry looks to become a firefighter.
And that's it.
Nothing about Hen.
No trailer like every other ABC show.
No new cast photos or season poster.
Anirudh's clown emoji when Elijah and Corinne were announced as regulars, despite the fact that he would have known his status before the season started filming.
im back!! it took a while but im very happy with how this one turned out :) snowy and winter themes are one of my favorites so it was inevitably going to happen
